"Gnawing on Christ" - Sermon for Sunday, Aug 16th

Sermon:

Text:

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who asks to gnaw on and abide with him.

            Ok, week 4 in John 6 and well, this is a great text. As are the rest, but there is something here that changes a bit. Jesus has been talking about bread, bread, bread. And here he still is, but its now more than just he is the bread of life, or he is the bread come down from heaven, but it’s his flesh is this bread. “The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

            It’s not the food that he gave to the 5000, who followed him around the sea shore looking for more of the bread he gave them there, this is different bread, it’s not just bread, it’s BREAD, it’s REAL BREAD, it’s his flesh, it’s him. Which is so different that anything we can think of and anything they would have thought of. The text puts it nicely, “They disputed among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?””  To translate it to regular language, We aren’t becoming cannibals here, I’m not taking a bite out of your leg or arm. You have got to be kidding us. Your flesh? no way!

            I love the way that Pastor David Lose describes this scene, “How can this man give us his flesh?” they rightly ask. Or, in other words, “Stop talking nonsense, Jesus. We need something a little better than your empty, abstract, metaphorical promises.” To this angry demand, Jesus responds by insisting … on the point he has already made. “I am telling you the truth,” he says, both to the crowd gathered around him in Capernaum and to us gathered here today. “I am telling you the truth: if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in yourselves. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…. For my flesh is the real food; my blood is the real drink.”

            It’s just a crazy thought. And then when we look at the words that Jesus uses here it gets even crazier. Jesus describes eating his flesh and drinking his blood not with the usual word for eat, simply to take a bite, chew and swallow, but a word that has the meaning behind it of gnaw, masticate, grind, chomp. It’s not just {chew, chew, chew} but {GNAW…}

            And then Jesus expands upon it, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me.”

            Abide, live with, remain in connection.

            And when I look at that Abide, and see a connection to the word for eat that Jesus uses. I’m reminded of watching a dog eat. I don’t think it’s like when a dog eats from his bowl, just inhaling it as fast as possible. My cousin’s dog Henrii would eat his bowl of food in around 15 secs it seemed. Barely had time for it to register in his mouth before he chomped and swallowed. I see this word that Jesus is using more like when a dog gnaws on a bone for hours. My parents dog Eddie would chew and grind on his bone for a while on one rug, take it with him to look out the window, lay down with it for a brief nap, wake up to gnaw some more, go see what we were up to, leaving it gross on the floor for awhile only to sprint across the house for it again a minute later.

            I think that’s what Jesus is talking about, do we take him like a dog and his bowl, scarf him down without thinking and then move on with our day? Or do we take our time enjoying each gnaw and bit, savoring the moments we spend with our Lord, bringing those moments to those around us, not letting it pass us by, but making it a part of who we are.

            And there’s another reason I think that this is the way Jesus wants us to look at this, not as a quick meal to temporarily satiate, but a meal that turns into a way of life. And that’s the word he uses for himself as the bread. He doesn’t talk about his body here. He talks about his flesh. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s important. Because Jesus is not trying to tie this to his last supper with the disciples, at least not entirely, there he uses the language of his body and blood, here it’s flesh and blood, and within the Gospel of John flesh always points back to the first chapter. “And the Word became Flesh.”

            So, here Jesus is not talking strictly Eucharistic, communion, language, but incarnational language, it’s not about Christ and his death, but Christ coming to us and giving us life.

            It’s not about quick eating and moving on, but dwelling with Christ, seeing the life, no, experiencing the life that he brings to us.

            It’s the difference between spiritual junk food, things that we think will satiate, think they will fill us, but they don’t they leave us longing for more and more and more, but in Christ, we receive the healthy meal we need, the gift that gives life, the bread which fills.

            And we gnaw upon it. We bring it to show our neighbors, our family, our friends, we may put it aside, but then we run, we sprint to get it again. It’s not just something that we do once or twice a month, but it’s something that is a part of our very being and life. If only we would be like a dog that you try to take it’s bone away, growly and fighting, and then whining and begging to get it back.

            The Eucharist we will soon eat is very important, it’s also life giving and full of grace and forgiveness, but Christ’s flesh is his very life and that’s something we need at every moment, something that we need to take with us wherever we go, not just so we can show and share, but also because it’s our life as well. It’s our meaning and nourishment, our strength and security blanket, our rawhide and catnip toy.

            This week go out and get some jerky or thick bread, and gnaw on Christ, share some with someone else and tell of what Christ means for your life.